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Be a good listener. Picture your goals. Is it really possible to learn charisma?

A Harley Street therapist is giving masterclasses in charisma. The secret isn’t performance, but using the skills you have

Nick Curtis

July 27 2015, 1:01am, The Times

Nick Curtis with therapist Richard ReidTimes Newspapers Ltd

Bill Clinton has it. George Clooney has it. So does Boris Johnson. Michelle Obama has, if anything, even more of it than her husband (and he has a lot). There are those who believe Jeremy Corbyn has it. It’s charisma, that indefinable magnetism that makes people do what you want, whether it’s come into the Oval Office for a bit, buy a Nespresso machine or drag the Labour party back to the 1980s. So are you born with it or can you acquire it?

On my way to meet Richard Reid — the TV and celebrity therapist, not the terrorist known as the shoebomber, or the near-homophonous leader of the Fantastic Four — I kept thinking of those old bodybuilding ads that promised to turn a nine-stone…